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Coronado Mystery
Notorious 1892 True Crime/Famous Ghost Legend
Three Books: Dead Move (nonfiction)
True Crime and Ghost Legend: Beautiful Stranger. The story of the Beautiful Stranger at the Hotel del Coronado, across the bay from San Diego, is arguably the strongest ghost legend in the area. On Thanksgiving Day 1892, a stunning young woman, traveling alone, registered at the Hotel Del under the phony name Lottie A. Bernard. After five days of acting increasingly strangely, she was found dead of a gunshot to the head on the back steps of the hotel, following a literally dark and stormy night of raging wind and ocean waves.
Her story was immediately picked up by the Yellow Press of the day, and became a national sensation on the internet of the times: the telegraph. Until I published Dead Move, nobody had a clue who she was, or why she died. Rumors of scandalous affairs with men in high places abounded. The nation was breathless. The death certificate, oddly, has two names on it, and other mysteries abound. Time passed, and she is remembered only as the famous ghost of Room 3327 (originally Room 302) in the Hotel Del.
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